


Freedom Was Never For You, Love

by Zayrastriel



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, M/M, dub-con
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-19
Updated: 2014-04-19
Packaged: 2018-01-13 01:49:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1208326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zayrastriel/pseuds/Zayrastriel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean runs.  There’s no point, but he runs.<br/>And Sam finds him, eventually.  Doesn't kill him.<br/>(Dean wishes he would, knows he never will.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

On some nights, he manages to find a hotel; a run-down building with cracked windows and musty sheets.  There he tosses and turns till the exhaustion kicks in.  More often than not, of course, sleep doesn’t come.  Not till he gives in (like always) and downs enough alcohol that sleep has no choice but to embrace him.

Other nights, he finds himself curled uncomfortably in the backseat of whatever stolen car he’s gotten for the week.  He shakes it up, of course – sometimes it’s a limo, more often an old Ford or rusted Toyota.  He always misses the old comforting leather of his Impala, though he misses it with an ache that’s almost as bad as the ache he feels when he thinks of –

No.  _That_ ache is mixed in with anger – pure hot anger, tainted only by the stench of fear.

But whether with exhaustion or alcohol; in a hotel room or in the back seat of a car – when Dean sleeps, he dreams. 

And when he dreams, it’s of Sam.  Samuel Dean Winchester.  Dean’s baby brother, towering above him with long limbs and broad shoulders and slanted fox eyes that pierce Dean’s soul. 

Sam always smiles, always loving and warm.  Tells him not to fear.  “ _I’m coming, baby_ ,” he says, and as he caresses Dean’s cheek, Dean quivers with arousal and dread.  “ _I’m coming for you_.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam would raise the sun for Dean. Dean wishes he wouldn't.

Texas is cold, for mid-summer.  

By cold, Dean doesn't mean a brief chilly wind, and overcast skies.  After all, Dean always hated chilly winds and overcast skies.  Rain, too - so it hasn't rained for months on end, now.  

No; by cold, Dean means sunny skies and snow carpeting the carpark, soft and fluffy like icy down.  

They never really spent much time when they were younger having fun; really, not any by normal standards.  Of course, Dean's idea of fun had involved learning to use a shotgun and how to hit targets with a crossbow, so that hadn't mattered much.  

The closest they'd ever gotten to normal fun was one time when they were on the border of Canada and New York, one freezing winter.  It was a particularly vicious Hindu demon, brought over by a small Indian community living on the outskirts of NY; and one that only came out on Friday and Saturday nights.  They arrived on a Sunday night, before Dad had realised the pattern.  So there had been one week, shining bright in the dimness of Dean's childhood memory, where they'd been largely at ease.  It was that week of Christmas break, the only one where Sam would stop studying (even at age eleven).

As Dean reverses into a carspace with a curse at the shoddy brakes on the tiny hatchback he'd been driving for the past couple of days, he wishes desperately that Sam hadn't been so attentive; didn't realise that Dean's favourite memory was of snowball fights under the shining sun.

There are a million things Dean wishes.  But mostly they all come down to the fact that Dean can't bear this feeling, more than he can't bear the despair of knowing it's all over. 

No, far worse is the twisting heartbreak of Sam's love, warped and dark and horribly beautiful.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It isn't cold Texas where Sam finally catches up. 
> 
> Instead, it's a suburban road in California, about ten minutes drive from Stanford University.

It was stupid to come here, Dean knows that; but in the midst of all the running, he's somehow forgotten exactly  _whereabouts_ he's been running.  It isn't till he finds himself staring in blank disbelief at the front of a far-too familiar building that he realises exactly where he is.  

It's a bit different for the complete absence of people, of course.  But still, it's a bit hard  _not_ to recognise the place, not with the bloody giant sign at the front.

Sam probably doesn't realise that Dean is this familiar with the place.  Sam never knew, after all, how many times Dean managed to sneak away from Dad; how many times Dean found himself here over those long four years.  How many times Dean yearned to step onto the university grounds and find his baby brother.

(But Stanford had been Sam's world, Sam's escape.  Not Dean's, because if Sam got normality then Dean was never, ever going to have the chance.)

Still - after Dean gets over the initial freakout of where his mind has taken him (to a time when he'd been reaching out for his brother, not fleeing him), he figures it's not actually a bad idea to stick around, if only for a little.  This has got to be the last place Sam would expect to find him, after all.  

He's not bitter about that, if only because right now he's wishing Sam had stayed with Stanford and away from Dean, away from the way Dean couldn't help but fuck him up, couldn't help but ooze his own corruption onto Sam.  

Dean wonders sometimes whether he's the reason Jessica died.  They'd been doing fine till the night Dean had showed up, after all; till the night she ended up pinned to the ceiling, dead and burning.  Sure, Azazel had said all that crap about how Sam was never going to have a normal life, how Jess had been holding him back, blah blah.  But it couldn't have been a coincidence, Dean appearing and Jess dying.

Perhaps that's why Dean's here right now; driving down a road he's only traveled twice before.  Once to find Sam, once to bring him back (and goddamnit, if that had just  _worked_ maybe this wouldn't be-)

~

When Dean parks today's shitty Ford on the curb opposite Sam's old house, it's to the strangest feeling of _deja_ _vu_.The house looks the same as it did that night; that night when Dean had finally gathered up his nerve, had brushed aside all the thoughts of  _Sammy-won't-want-me_ (oh yeah, he's not worried about that anymore) and  _he'll hate me_ (not so sure about that one.)  In truth, it looks a little too similar; as though it hasn't been years since that night.  Jessica could still be alive for all the changes that haven't happened to the building.  Sam could have his law interview in a couple of days.  Dad could still be alive - missing, but alive - and Dean. _  
_

Well, he might not have been the happiest little sunshine back then, but it's not as though it's any different now.

The house is the same, Dean's happiness levels are the same.

But it's not the same, that's the thing.  Not really.  It must have been rebuilt after the fire; different, no matter how similar it looks.  There are none of Sam's clothes in it, strewn messily across the floor of his bedroom.  There's no Jess in that house, baking cookies for Sam like a good little housewife.  Probably no one, if the inhabitants know what's good for them and have scampered.  There's no point, not really; demons might have started touching these parts of the States but it's still safer here than in the cold, where they thrive like fucking...whatever thrives in the cold.  

Still, Dean can't help himself; can't help opening the door and sliding out of the car.  He can't help walking towards that house, that house that stood like a monument and mausoleum to far too many things.  To normalcy, to Jess, to a cookie-cutter life

Can't help putting his hand on the doorknob, and...

"Dean."

It's a caress; a breath of air that strokes the back of his neck with infinite gentleness.

It's an ensnaring loop of silk, wound tight around his throat.

It's a hand over his, pushing it back down from the handle.  He fights it, fights it as though turning that doorknob and walking through the threshold might somehow take him back to a simpler time, where there was nothing but good and evil.

(But it's not like that anymore.)

"Dean."

This time it's less a caress and more a reprimand.  And while his mind reacts with fury, his body turns before he can stop himself.

The first thing he notices is the hair.  It's long and shaggy -  _need a haircut or you'll turn into a mongrel, bitch_ \- and almost shoulder-length.  The shoulders are the same, of course; so's the rest of the body.  Broad shoulders, lean waist.  Legs that go on forever.

Dean leaves the eyes till last, purposefully.  He drags it out, as long as he can, till those lips are quirked in an amused smile.  Till he can't avoid them any longer.

They're fire; golden fire, flickering low and powerful with a heat that tingles over Dean's skin, like he's surrounded by flames on all sides.  Hemmed in, like a wild animal.

"S-Sam," he chokes out, because there's nothing else there to say, nothing but his brother's name like a prayer or curse or final word.

The eyes sharpen; focus in on Dean till he can barely breathe for the sheer  _pain_ of knowing that this is it, this is him, this is-

"Welcome home, baby," Sam purrs, warm and loving and  _oh so threatening_.  "I've missed you."

 


End file.
